When New York Jets players returned to the team’s facility from their bye week on Monday, they were greeted by speeches from an interim head coach and an interim general manager.
Most of the roster was brought to New York by Robert Saleh and Joe Douglas. Both were fired before Thanksgiving, the Jets playoff hopes dead before December. So on Monday, it was Jeff Ulbrich and Phil Savage standing in front of the team, delivering words to convince them that there’s still something to play for, even if it doesn’t really feel like it. Ulbrich talked about finishing off the season “the right way” over the final six games, starting with Sunday at home against the Seattle Seahawks. Savage spoke about the importance of maintaining professionalism regardless of the circumstance the Jets find themselves in.
“If you don’t like what’s going on… you’ve got to make some sacrifices to make those changes happen.” pic.twitter.com/qnZAGWG6ON
— New York Jets (@nyjets) November 25, 2024
It would be fair to wonder if that message is falling on deaf ears at this point, especially as owner Woody Johnson has already turned the page to 2025. If that wasn’t obvious when the Jets fired Douglas as general manager last week, it was on Monday afternoon when the Jets announced they were hiring The 33rd Team, a media and consulting firm run by former Jets general manager Mike Tannenbaum, to help them in their search for a new general manager and head coach. Tannenbaum and former Minnesota Vikings general manager Rick Spielman will lead the way in a “supportive role to help identify and vet candidates in addition to coordinate interviews.”
Sure, the Jets are 3-8 and have a less than one percent chance of making the postseason, according to the New York Times playoff simulator. If the Jets somehow won all of their remaining six games, that number would still only jump to 30 percent.
When Ulbrich was given the interim head coaching tag upon Saleh’s firing in October, it was with the idea that the rest of the season would serve as his audition for the full-time job. Now, the Jets are actively searching for his replacement — though Ulbrich hasn’t been ruled out as a candidate. Awkward?
“In all honesty, it’s not at all,” Ulbrich said. “My focus is finishing the season off the right way, playing a brand of football we’re all proud of, myself included, and that starts with Seattle.”
With Ulbrich as head coach, the Jets defense has taken a nosedive. Since Week 6, Ulbrich’s first game as interim head coach, it ranks 30th in defensive EPA, 26th in rushing defense and 24th in points allowed per game. They’ve also forced the fewest turnovers (two) in the NFL during that span and haven’t recorded an interception since Week 5, Saleh’s last game as head coach. Tackling has been an issue, lowlighted by the Week 10 loss to the Cardinals in which the Jets missed 20 tackles.
None of that helps Ulbrich’s case for earning the full-time job, but as with Jets players the next six games will serve as his audition for the rest of the NFL too. Ulbrich is not giving up play-calling, he said, maintaining control of his unit while also trying to lead the entire operation. It’s a formula that hasn’t worked so far.
“We created a real clear vision of where we need to improve and found some things,” Ulbrich said, declining to get into specifics. “Obviously you find the things that you’re not doing well, you need to improve upon them. But then we also found some things that I think we can really build upon.”
The tallest task for Ulbrich over the final six games: buy-in. The players know that the person leading the organization (Johnson) has already given up on their season and is looking ahead to next year. Their head coach was fired. Their general manager was fired. They’re 3-8, the playoffs are unrealistic and there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot to play for — other than pride.
It’s been a crazy season, to say the least. “That’s definitely a word for it,” said linebacker C.J. Mosley, one of the team’s captains. “You could throw a lot of different synonyms in there. (Firings don’t) happen a lot, but it happens. It’s unfortunate that it’s happened to us this year. We can only control what we do on the field. … You can’t make any excuses when there’s changes in our locker room, changes upstairs, downstairs or around the corner, the only thing we can control is when we step in between the white lines, what we’re doing to win football games. As players, that’s what we have to make sure that our main focus stays at.”
Mosley added that the goal going forward is simple: win.
“Even though we’re coming out of this bye week with a losing record, it doesn’t have to stay that way,” he said. “We can find a way to win these last few games and try to make something out of these last six weeks that we have because at the end of the day, at the end of season, whether we finish with all wins, all losses or .500, change is going to happen regardless. So we might as well do what we can while we’re here.”
There are plenty of players and coaches with something to prove. Ulbrich wants to prove he deserves a shot at being a head coach, whether with the Jets or someone else. Mosley wants to prove he still has something left in the tank, though a neck injury might still keep him out of Sunday’s game. There are many key players set to hit free agency this offseason, and others who will be fighting for roster spots — whether that’s with the Jets or with one of the other 31 teams.
“We understand that, you know, they’re doing things upstairs, figuring out what’s going to happen next year,” said offensive tackle Morgan Moses, who will be a free agent. “But a lot of people in this locker room are playing for a lot of things, whether it’s free agency, whether it’s more playing time, whether it’s to be on the 53-man roster. If you’re a practice squad guy, there’s so many variables that guys are going to contribute into this thing. And all we have to worry about is playing football. I want to say a lot of that is outside noise and we’re going to control the things we can control in the locker room and that’s just getting ready for Seattle.”
Then there’s Aaron Rodgers. The quarterback turns 41 in December and is in the midst of one of the worst stretches of his career. He’s never been the starter of a team that was out of playoff contention this early. He’s been banged up all season and a recent NFL Network report suggested that Rodgers has been refusing to get scans on his injuries so the team couldn’t prevent him from playing. Rodgers has looked like a shell of himself, unwilling to throw the ball downfield or make plays on the run, which used to be his signature.
There’s the question of whether the Jets (or Rodgers himself) will ultimately shut it down, especially as it becomes clearer that neither Rodgers nor Johnson are likely to want to continue this marriage into 2025. But Ulbrich said Rodgers looks healthier coming out of the bye week than he has at any point in the last month.
“A healthy Aaron Rodgers is the Aaron Rodgers we all love,” Ulbrich said.
On Monday, Ulbrich was in the unfortunate position of being questioned about things largely out of his control: Rodgers’ status for the rest of the season and Johnson’s over-involvement in the team’s day-to-day operations, as detailed by The Athletic last week.
When questioned, Ulbrich said he was “not informed of that” report about Rodgers declining to take tests, and would only say three words to the question of whether there are internal discussions about shutting him down: “There is not.”
Will Rodgers be the starting quarterback against Seattle?
“Absolutely,” Ulbrich said.
As for The Athletic’s report that safety Tony Adams was benched as a starter in Week 11 at Johnson’s instruction, Ulbrich didn’t exactly say “no.”
“Guys, I’m preaching to the players about the singular focus going forward and pouring everything into this Seahawks team and owning this process,” Ulbrich said. “I gotta live that too. I can’t be sitting here talking about things that may or may not have happened. Mr. Johnson and myself have great dialogue, consistent dialogue, we talk all the time and we have very honest conversations and I’d like to keep those conversations between the two of us.”
The Jets have a lot of questions about what the future looks like around here. Those won’t be answered until the offseason. In the meantime, they still have six games to play.
(Photo: Luke Hales / Getty Images)
